First Impressions

Incheon International Airport has nothing to distinguish it from any other major airport I have ever been to. For the first 100 yards out of the airplane, I didn’t even see a single character of Hangul–everything, including the advertisements, was purely in English.

The bus ride from the airport to the inprocessing station took us past several landscapes. The one I found most interesting was a stretch of beach: a bit of sand, a large muddy intertidal zone, and a line of barbed wire and blockhouses. Just your average everyday coastal fortifications.

Cherry blossoms turn out not to be a purely Japanese thing. The base right now is hilighted in pink, with fallen petals littering the grounds everywhere.

The first people visible after coming through the gate were a trio of teenagers walking and chatting after school. It amazes me how we’ve transplanted a bit of the US right into the capital of a foreign nation so effectively that you couldn’t prove without context that it is actually outside America.

In keeping with the theme, five minutes later we drove past a kid half my age and twice my weight. It’s America, all right.

In other news, I am safely arrived after an uneventful flight. If you must fly coach on a long flight, get a bulkhead seat: it is much, much better than the alternative. Inprocessing day zero begins tomorrow. Jetlag status: I think I really did develop an immunity.